During the assembly of parts where one metal surface slides across another metal surface, it is often desirable and sometimes necessary to provide a coating on the metal parts to provide lubrication to prevent scratching. An example of such a situation is during the assembly of nuclear fuel cores when the fuel rods are inserted into fuel bundle spacer grids. The insertion forces on the fuel rods can be significant and can be greatly reduced by the use of a lubricant. It may also be desirable to provide a protective coating either on the fuel rods or on the spacer grids which will prevent any chances of scratching during the assembly process. Any coating material which is used must be removable from the surfaces after assembly since these coating materials cannot be left in the reactor during opration. Not only is it desirable to have a relatively simple decoating process, but the decoating process must also remove substantially all of the coating material so that residual, contaminating materials do not remain. For example, it is necessary to decoat fuel rods to a surface carbon content of no greater than 0.01 micrograms of carbon per square centimeter or rod surface area. Other factors to be considered in selecting a coating material are that it be nonflammable, nontoxic and nonexplosive so that extra ordinary precautions are not necessary during the process. Also, the coating should be such that the waste disposal problem during decoating is relatively simple and economical. The coating should also have sufficient lubricity, adhesion and strength to impart more than adquate lubrication and scratch prevention with a relatively thin coat such as 0.5 to 1.0 mils thickness The coating materials which are currently available for such a purpose are either hazardous or they are not readily removed from the surface or leave trace materials behind which are unsuitable in a nuclear reactor environment.